Reviewing chocolate all day is of course, a fantastic job. But it does have its down sides. One of the biggest is that I can never leave the house because I’m always expecting a chocolate delivery and someone has to answer the door to the postman/courier.

So this idea intrigued me. A box of chocolates that’s pretty much guaranteed to fit through your letterbox. Send it to anyone you like and you can be fairly certain that you won’t have caused them headache and disruption by having to arrange a re-delivery or driving to the sorting office simply because your little gift arrived while they were at work.

This particular box arrived while I was up in Derbyshire visiting the Thorntons Factory, and apparently fit through my letterbox with ease. Upon opening, I was greeted by this… er… timely “Merry Christmas” message. Clearly I’ve been sent leftovers, which is fine (they hadn’t passed their use-by date), but not a great first impression.

I then spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out the instructions which cover most of the packaging. Instructions on how to fold and manipulate the box in order to send them to someone. It’s all horribly confusing, in multiple languages, and clearly not helped by the fact that these had already been sent to someone – me.

Suddenly, a great idea turns into something over-complicated and frustrating. If these are being bought online to send to someone else, you should be able to get them to deliver direct via the web site. And if they’re being sold to give away to someone in person, then all those confusing instructions should come away so the recipient gets a nice, pretty box of chocolates.

Instead, we have what looks like a chocolate origami class.

Onto the chocolates themselves. There’s no description of what they are, but there are four each of four varieties. Two milk, one white, one dark. Remove the cellophane wrapper from the tray and you’re greeted by a strongly alcoholic smell. If you’re planning on sending these to someone who can’t/won’t touch alcohol, you can forget it. The ingredients are listed on the web site, but they’re easy to miss.

Taste-wise, they’re OK but nothing to write home about (Useless Puns ‘R’ Us). The Belgian chocolate is smooth and glossy, but they’re all quite sweet. The alcohol in one of the milk chocolates is overpoweringly strong, but the flavours are quite pleasant.

It would have been nice to see a little more variation in the chocolates themselves. If you don’t like one particular chocolate, that’s a quarter of the box gone in one go. Although at only 80g in total, you don’t get much if you do happen to like them either.

And that brings me to my final complaint – the price. £9 (plus postage) for an 80g box of mass produced chocolates is, frankly, outrageous. It’s also a little bit off that they charge £1 for postage, when the stamp on the box says they paid 72p. And there’s no extra packaging around the box to pay for either.

All in all, this is a great concept, let down by poor execution and a silly price. If they come back with more variety, simpler packaging and half the price, then they might have potential, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend them in their current form.

Comments On This Post

You’ll find something for absolutely everyone in your life in our Sleekster Selection of Chocograms – designed to slip through most letterboxes. Delivered the next-day or a date of your choosing, just add your personal message, which we print onto a stylish gift card, and the gorgeous surprise will be complete.You’ll

I love the idea of letterbox chocolates…although they don’t have letterboxes over here in the states so it wouldn’t have the same “wow great concept” effect. I don’t do complicated though, if it’s liable to irritate me or the person I’m giving it to you can forget it. Why not just send a letterbox box of chocolates? What’s the need for extra assembly and instructions? I can do alcohol in choccys though YUM!

Hello All,
As a representative from Letterbox Chocolate, I have to say that this is the absolute first I have ever heard of anyone being confused by the packaging. There is, very clearly, a perforated line where the card/chocolates are detached from an additional fold of packaging – this would be equated to an envelope, as most mail is not sent loosely. 10 minutes seems quite an extraordinary amount of time to spend figuring this out and I am sorry you had such trouble.
The Christmas card was sent because we are a small company and don’t take on massive amounts of each card as we are only growing. We have been experiencing a very positive response and with Mother’s Day and Easter coming up, anticipated and received a healthy number of orders for our other cards. I hadn’t realized I was attempting to woo you or I would have sent a prettier card. I thought you were interested in the chocolates themselves.
I have also never observed or heard mention of anyone reporting a “smell” of alcohol, not even when I have opened and consumed them myself. We actually have not received any complaints regarding our product and, in fact, a great number of our customers are repeat buyers.
I am sorry you didn’t enjoy our product and am glad I happened back to your site to see this, as you have ignored all of my correspondence inquiring how you enjoyed the sample.
All the best,
Letterbox Chocolate

Ok, firstly, I take issue with your assertion that we’ve “ignored all of your correspondence”. I just checked my entire email archive and junk folders and you haven’t sent any such email.

Secondly, if you ask us to do a review, that’s what you’ll get. Our personal opinion of your product. There would be no point at all in saying we liked something when we didn’t – our readers wouldn’t trust our opinion if we did, and it would deny you the opportunity to improve the product.

My daughter has just received a box of Letterbox chocolates from the little girl over the road as a gift for her eighth birthday and I have to say we thought they were just fab! We are very picky chocolate people, usually only eating Green & Blacks! But, these are lovely, a great gimmick and I would use the service…..and it appears that they are my daughter’s friend’s favourite chocolates, which is why she sent them apparently!

Theres a great new product that is easy to post just like a post card called Chocs in a Box foiled wrapped Milk chocolates and every choc has the theme printed on the wrapper to match the theme of the chocolate box I bought the Happy Birthday Box with happy Birthday printed on each wrapper many Tourist designs too which will be great for all visitors coming this year but I saw many different themes even one for best best teacher great value too only cost £4 99 compared to letter box they seem to be much better value ,simple to send and great themes a really good concept best of all there is no need for a Greeting Card as there is a message card to also write on and slip into the box before giving or posting…. i bought mine from Blue Bell Railway that had their label printed on many of the boxes……the chocs are lovely too…… will ceratinly be sending to my family over seas.

I too bought chocsinabox with a banksy design,the chocs were tasty and easy to post like a post card only 69 pence 2nd class…..heaps of great designs so bought Birthday Merry Xmas etc for family and friends…………uncomplicated great value I paid 3 pounds fify for mine